


Ocimum Basilicum

by anonymous_sibyl



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-07
Updated: 2007-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_sibyl/pseuds/anonymous_sibyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things you're afraid to miss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ocimum Basilicum

**Author's Note:**

> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works.

"Grapes," she said. "And cheese. Chocolate. Fresh raspberries." She sighed. "Lemons."

"Lemonade. Icy cold lemonade." He leaned his head back on his folded arms. "The real kind, with pulp in it. Not too tart, but not too sweet."

"Fresh bread." She moved her head where it rested on his bare chest so she could better hear his heart. "Can you smell it? All yeasty and warm?"

"I've never," he said. "My mother didn't bake bread."

"Bakeries, Lee. There were bakeries."

"I never had time for them." He stroked her hair, buried his face in it and frowned. "You're going to call me stupid."

"No." She tightened her arms around him and wished she could make any of this better. "Not until I see you passing up fresh bread myself." She dug her fingers into his rubs. "Which you would never do, would you?"

"Never."

"Then we're fine."

He lowered his arm and pulled her tighter to him. "Tell me what else you miss."

"Basil. Rosemary. Fresh herbs." She inhaled as if she could smell them, wished she could. "I miss herbs. I miss growing them. Planting them, digging in the dirt. Basil devours water, did you know that? It can die almost instantly on a hot day if you don't take care."

"Sounds fragile."

"It is." She heard something in his voice so tilted her head up so she could see his face. "What?"

"All those things are gone."

"And?"

"And I never had time for them."

"We're edging close to territory where I question your intelligence."

"I let everything pass me by. Because I didn't have time. I was too busy working for the career that I don't even have anymore."

"Basil is too good to exist in only one place in the universe," she said carefully. "We'll find it again."

"And I'll let it get away from me then, too."

"Well, then you are stupid, Lee." She reached up and tousled his hair, smiling as she dragged it down into his face. It made him look younger, boyish. "Because now you know everything you'll be missing out on."

"Are you talking about basil?" he asked.

"Are you?" She snuggled closer to him. "Maybe we should stop this talking through other things that we do. Maybe we should just talk."

"Fight, you mean."

She nodded. "We do that well."

"I don't like it the way you do."

She laughed. "That's just because you don't like to lose."

"That isn't true at all. I can lose. I can lose gracefully and graciously. I am completely able to handle a loss."

"Mhm."

"I can!"

"Of course you can. Just not right now."

"Exactly." He lifted her and placed her squarely on his chest. "But I could if I wanted to. Right?"

She squirmed atop him, trying to find a comfortable spot. She braced one hand on the bed beneath them and draped the other over his shoulder, stroking her fingers over his skin. "Yes. You could lose if you wanted to."

"Okay, then."

She couldn't hold in her laughter. Times like this were too rare between them and she meant to enjoy them while she could. "I would miss this if it were gone."

"Why would it be gone?"

She shrugged. "Why would anything be gone? Why don't I have basil growing on my windowsill?"

He cupped her head in his hand and drew her down so he could kiss her forehead. "That one I know. You don't have basil growing on your windowsill because you live in space and your window looks out on the emptiness."

"Emptiness," she murmured. "But it isn't, is it? There's us, there's the cylons, and we're all praying there's something else."

"I'm not." He flinched when she looked at him, shrinking down into himself. She wanted to reach in after him and drag him back out. "I should be, I know, but I'm not."

"Why?"

He placed two fingers under her chin and tilted her face to him. "You never ask that question, do you know that? You don't question me." He shook his head when she tried to interrupt. "You challenge me, you always challenge me, but you never ask why."

"And now I have."

"And now I don't know how to answer."

She studied him for a while, watching his fingers curl around her hair, wondering if the twitching muscle in his neck ever relaxed. "Answering is easy."

"What if I don't know the answer?"

"Then maybe there is no answer." She blew across his neck. "Maybe if there was one, you would know it."

"Or maybe I'm just afraid to face the answer."

She rolled off him and curled up by his side, then draped her leg over his. It was cold now, the room chilling, so she caught the blanket with the tip of her fingers and tugged it over them, tucking it around his side so he wouldn't be exposed. "Apples," she said. "Warm from the sun, fresh picked off the tree."

"Oranges." He tucked her head under his chin and twined his fingers through hers. "The way the skin smells when dig your finger into it."

"We'll have a garden when we get where we're going," he said. "You can plant and I can help."

She wanted to answer him, tease him about the kind of help she thought he'd give, or point out to him that maybe she knew why he wasn't hoping for something else out there, but she was warm nestled against his side, and sleep was claiming her. She managed one word only. "Basil."


End file.
